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Thursday, July 26, 2012

pen pals

I know it's been a while since I wrote about Uganda, Even though I think about them EVERY single day!

While I was there I couldn't help but notice a beautiful little girl that was attending the St. Jerome Cove center boarding school. She was quite and seemed to always be by herself. always in the back of the class room. I don't think I saw many other kids talk to her but they did giggle and point at her from time to time.

This broke my heart and I realized the reason it bothered me so much was because she was ME in elementary school! I was the awkward loner that was extremely shy and quite. I had a few friends but when we were assigned a project to work on with a partner I was always the one that had to tell the teacher I didn't have was left without a partner. Elementary school was really hard on me and I think that's where a lot of my insecurities come from. But this is not about poor Kassondra. I grew up, had a great childhood, went to high school and met tons of friends! the bullies never teased me because it was a much bigger school and their were a lot more weirdos than this wall flower :) I loved High School!

But I felt like I could relate to this little girl in Uganda. (shes the girl in the back row of the picture looking back at me.)

Time and activities got really busy and somehow I never got that opportunity to talk to her like I wanted to. and that really bothers me. I pray for her every day that God will bless her the way he blessed me. always be by her side and show her there is light at the end of her tunnel. the other kids will some day stop using her as a target and she will find something positive about herself and build her self esteem from that.
I contacted my dear wonderful friend Richard and asked him what her name was. he confirmed my observations and said she doesn't have many friends and no family. the other kids always make jokes about her and she cries a lot. I asked Richard if he thought it would be OK if my daughter Julia wrote her a letter. Richard sent me a smiley face and her full name and address!
Julia is nothing like me! She is so out going and funny and smart. she
never lets people walk all over her or make fun of her. But I also know
she can be a bully herself. I think it is important that I teach her how
to treat everyone equally and not make others feel bad about themselves. I talked to her about the little girl in Uganda. Julia was
really upset. "That's not nice mommy! she should have at least one
friend that she can talk to." I asked her if she wanted to be that
friend? "how?" I gave her the paper and told her to write her a letter.

We have received a letter back from Julia's new pen pal. and Julia put it on display in my entry way. . everyday Julia writes new letters to her new friend and in each letter, without any influence from me, she writes a compliment to hopefully make her friend feel good about herself.

this is not an attempt to say I'm such a great mommy but just to show you that I have such a great daughter :)